PetriH:
Yes, there are a few tricks at play There can only be three sprites per scanline but I do multiplexing so that I have different set of three sprites per scanline. There can be virtually any number of sprites on the screen vertically. Also, collectable items like gold and hearts are technically background tiles. I just animate the tiles, i.e. swap their tile pointers in RAM. I divide the screen vertically to regions and scan one region each frame. If the tile is a heart or gold I update its pointer. This way updating the tiles is quite efficient.
Does it render directly from tiles? (ie. no charmap...)
There can only be three sprites per scanline but I do multiplexing so that I have different set of three sprites per scanline. There can be virtually any number of sprites on the screen vertically. Also, collectable items like gold and hearts are technically background tiles. I just animate the tiles, i.e. swap their tile pointers in RAM. I divide the screen vertically to regions and scan one region each frame. If the tile is a heart or gold I update its pointer. This way updating the tiles is quite efficient.